META⚠️ IMPORTANT UPDATE, PLEASE READ AND GIVE INPUT!⚠️

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[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (9 children)

Sooooo ... I've considered myself persona non grata here since the privating and my departure.

But I think in light of recent developments, I should speak up also. I'm not willing to just slink away and subjugate you and me and all of us. I still believe in what we are doing, even if I won't be a mod anymore or actively participating.

I think our host is looking for a reason to get rid of us now that we have proven to be not-Drama and more work than expected. WPD and Cringetopia also proved to be a lot of work for them, but especially WPD since they have a brand/image they want to maintain. Cringetopia pulled the plug on themselves, but apparently WPD got taken over unwillingly.

I paid for our site resources until January 2023, and our domains are paid for until June 2023. I have no problem paying for our site until June 2023, as a nice and even boundary. I have been holding off giving any extra money until we see our site actualized. I know better than to tip a vendor for their services before they deliver. I can afford to throw away setup fees and take an L, but I'm not giving another dime until we get what we've been promised.

It's unprofessional to offer services, and then come back weeks later and try to strong-arm and gaslight customers into believing they were wrong for asking/accepting. True colors have been shown. It's not LGBDTT's fault for requesting, it's theirs for over-promising and not delivering. I don't care what the reasons are.

I've been willing to help every step of the way, and have been patient and understanding until we were shunned and silenced.

The dev I have been working with regularly is awesome (Snakes), but he got tasked with everything while his "bosses" abandoned him. He is also not a project manager and shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place. He promised things he and they couldn't guarantee, and I suspect he didn't even realize it. If Aev and Carp were in charge then they should have been there from the start and stated what can and cannot be done. That way NONE OF US would be sitting here with our thumbs up our asses with our main dev so overloaded that he has to ignore everyone.

I think we should still utilize the site as-is, but prepare to abandon ship and be on our own after the hosting expires. I don't know how to guarantee we can get the domains back, and I know creating a site on our own will take a lot of work and expertise. I don't know how it will happen or work. But I think we have nearly a year to figure it out.

I'm in if you are.

EDIT, now that I am catching up after writing this comment:

We have now been given what we were promised for launch to you all (flairs and notifications of bad words). So we do have the bare minimum to go public and can open up the site to you and anyone else. I don't believe anything else will happen after this.

[–]RippoffOfLoveSStraight | Overuses quotation marks 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

The domains aren't in our possession? That is not ideal.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

Yeah ... I am definitely regretting putting my trust in them now and letting them set everything up.

Are we hosed? Do we have any recourse other than buying a different domain?

This is outside my skill and knowledge set.

It's probably a fools hope, but maybe we wait and hope they let the domains expire and don't repurchase after the year, so we can swoop in and grab them? But as we grow, they wouldn't want to give that up, so ...

Yeah, I fucked this up didn't I :( :( :(

[–]RippoffOfLoveSStraight | Overuses quotation marks 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Hey, don't panic. I think it's more important that the current domain hasn't been established yet. The biggest concern in my opinion is establishing that our space is one domain and then having to move down the road because rDrama owns it. So it's good we're talking about it now.

It can technically be sniped like that after the expiration, but there will likely be others that think to do the same. And they will almost certainly have worse intentions than anyone at rDrama. Also some registrars renew expired domains and park it for the owner in case they decide they wish to renew it after the fact. Just something to be aware of. So yeah, I would NOT count on sniping the domain.

The other two options are either coordinate with someone at rDrama to transfer the domain, or cut your losses and find a new domain. Better to do that sooner rather than later.

On the topic of anonymity- in doing some research, it's possible to remain anonymous but I don't think you can also truly own the domain in that case. There's Njalla for example. May be a worthwhile compromise.

[–]reluctant_commenter 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I think it's more important that the current domain hasn't been established yet. The biggest concern in my opinion is establishing that our space is one domain and then having to move down the road because rDrama owns it. So it's good we're talking about it now.

That makes sense, that's what I was thinking as well. Other people have tried to pretend to be us before, anyway (e.g. that "LGBDTT" group that was over on Ruqqus).

Also some registrars renew expired domains and park it for the owner in case they decide they wish to renew it after the fact. Just something to be aware of.

I've read about that. Such BS, lol. (Like Namecheap or GoDaddy or those other companies, I'm assuming you mean.)

On the topic of anonymity- in doing some research, it's possible to remain anonymous but I don't think you can also truly own the domain in that case. There's Njalla for example. May be a worthwhile compromise.

I'll do some reading as well. If you have any articles/sources you'd recommend reading or keywords to search, I'd be happy to hear.

[–]RippoffOfLoveSStraight | Overuses quotation marks 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Like Namecheap or GoDaddy or those other companies, I'm assuming you mean.

Bingo! GoDaddy was the exact registrar I was thinking of. It's a nice feature if you legitimately forget to renew a domain, but would be an additional obstacle for us.

If you have any articles/sources you'd recommend

This is the one I was reading that mentions Njalla. Which I was willing to mention by name because it (Njalla) was developed by The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

Before the news dropped that s/lgbdropthet was working with rDrama, the other option I was researching was Tor's .onion or I2P (or both). These solutions (at least on their own) would absolutely suck for visibility, but would be great for anonymity.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

rDrama got our domains through Namecheap, so I guess they're one of the ones that will hold onto it for a while after it expires?

I don't know anything about how Tor/onion or I2P / P2P works.

[–]RippoffOfLoveSStraight | Overuses quotation marks 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

so I guess they're one of the ones that will hold onto it for a while after it expires?

Not sure if namecheap does this domain parking thing. And to be frank, trying to snatch it up when it expires is not a great plan.

I don't know anything about how Tor/onion or I2P / P2P works.

The appeal of Tor/I2P is that the host can be anonymous. That makes it possible to self-host without exposing the server's IP (and therefore general physical location and possibly personal identity of whoever owns the hardware). Domains on these networks aren't registered in the same way that domains on the clear net are registered, either. No need to provide PII for a domain. That's the short of it.

This comes back to the initial conversation on privacy and trust. This all started moving because Saidit was no longer considered trustworthy, after all. Private conversations on here can be read by site admins. But they can probably be read by the hosting provider, which is likely a third party. The plan was to put that trust in rDrama and their hosting provider instead. And with the links being posted by Carp, that trust was perhaps misplaced. So if you ask me, going forward we should eliminate these middlemen at the very least. If we're paying for a hosting platform, the people managing the hosting service should be people inside our community. If we want to limit access even further than that, then we should consider self hosting.

I'm up for exploring hosting platforms since it would be no worse for privacy than rDrama running everything. And as long as expressing the views held here is legal in the countries that we're doing business in, total anonymity isn't super important. Just enough anonymity that the crazies can't identify us.

-edit-

I should also add that I think users' anonymity should be valued over their privacy. If you want private conversations, seek out an E2E encrypted platform outside of saidit. Assume everything posted here is public.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Was just reading up about Njalla, seems pretty good, and there's also that the Pirate Bay creator is the front man for it. Looks like they only accept crypto and PayPal though, and PayPal wouldn't guarantee privacy.

The ladies at Ovarit are using a company called Porkbun who does the same thing ... Porkbun is out of Oregon though, so since they're in the US, I think long-term privacy and protection would be a concern.

[–]RippoffOfLoveSStraight | Overuses quotation marks 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's good to know about Ovarit. Though it looks like all Porkbun provides is standard WhoIs protection (someone correct me if I'm wrong), which only works as long as nobody's trying to sue you. Njalla gets around this by being the "owner" of the domain. Here's what their FAQ page has to say:

We're not actually a domain name registration service, we're a customer to these. We sit in between the domain name registration service and you, acting as a privacy shield. When you purchase a domain name through Njalla, we own it for you. However, the agreement between us grants you full usage rights to the domain. Whenever you want to, you can transfer the ownership to yourself or some other party.